Alcohol & Tobacco

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has launched a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the multi-state tobacco settlement of 1998.

At the National Conference on Tobacco or Health, held in Chicago in May and attended by more than 5,000 tobacco control advocates and health education officials, an important topic--tobacco harm reduction--was pointedly ignored.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) FY 2006 budget tacitly admitted anti-tax activists were correct last year in predicting cigarette tax increases would bring in far less revenue than estimated.

Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at my reception January 25 at a Lakewood, Ohio hearing on whether to ban smoking in restaurants and bars. Such events tend to bring out the penny-ante dictators.

New York City residents who purchased smokes over the Internet are facing huge fines and garnishment of their wages for failing to pay city cigarette taxes.

More ammunition for the anti-smoking crowd will soon be released in a new book from MIT Press, The Price of Smoking.

In Clintwood, Virginia, population 1,549, businessman Randy Davis said he would move his tobacco business out of town if the Clintwood city council won't do away with a newly instituted 10 cents-per-pack cigarette tax.

Michigan smokers say they'll smoke 'em while they got 'em. And then get more. In Indiana. On July 1, a 75-cents-per-pack cigarette tax increase [took] effect in Michigan.

On April 8, voters in Oshkosh, Wisconsin approved a referendum banning smoking in some restaurants and bars. The measure passed by the slimmest of margins: 50.7 percent supported the ban.

On May 26, the Michigan House of Representatives voted in favor of making the state's cigarette tax the nation's second highest, behind only New Jersey, on a temporary basis.

When anti-smoking activists pushed to ban smoking in workplaces, and then in restaurants, and now even in bars, supporters of freedom of choice warned the alleged health risk to non-smokers was merely a smokescreen for activists to build momentum to ban

The controversial Cook County, Illinois cigarette tax hike went into effect on May 1, pushing the price of a pack of smokes in Chicago to $6. Only New Yorkers pay more. The tax hike might also mean Chicago follows New York's lead in other ways.

More than half (54 percent) of the funds states will receive this year from companies bound by the 1998 tobacco settlement will be spent patching state budget shortfalls, according to a report released March 22 by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO).

Reporter Kate Scott of KFVS Channel 12 in Kentucky got an earful from Bluegrass State smokers when she asked how they felt about Governor Ernie Fletcher's proposed cigarette tax increase. "I don't like it," declared Rodney Myatt of Kevil.

The Finance Committee of the Cook County (Chicago, Illinois) Board of Commissioners voted on February 3 to raise the county cigarette tax 450 percent, from 18 cents to $1.00 a pack.

A liquor tax hike implemented in Nevada in summer 2003 has done nothing to reduce alcohol use, but cigarette sales have slowed after an 80-cents-per-pack increase, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported on December 22.

Cigarette Tax Increases 2000 - 2004 State Increase/Pack New Rate/Pack Effective Date Arizona $0.58 $1.18 11/25/2002 Arkansas $0.04 $0.34 7/1/2001 Connecticut $0.61 $1.11 4/3/2002 Connecticut $0.40 $1.51 3/15/2003 Delaware $0.

The U.S. Senate passed on December 9 a bill (S. 1177) intended to curtail illegal cigarette trafficking and strengthen enforcement of cigarette tax collection from Internet vendors. The measure passed late in the evening by voice vote.

Every year, New York smokers avoid the state’s punitive cigarette taxes by buying millions of dollars in tax-free cigarettes from Native American stores.

States Ranked by Cigarette Tax Rank State Tax 1. Washington $1.425 2 New York $1.11 3. Alaska $1.00 3. Hawaii $1.00 3. Maine $1.00 3. Rhode Island $1.00 7. California $0.87 8. New Jersey $0.80 9. Wisconsin $0.77 10.

New York State increased its cigarette excise tax rate from $1.11 to $1.50 per pack in April 2002, while New York City dramatically increased its rate from 8 cents to $1.50 per pack in July of that year.

A 38-year study of Californians, begun by the American Cancer Society and concluded by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), has concluded that secondhand smoke has little if any negative impact on mortality.

In an unexpected reversal of federal policy, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has pledged the U.S. will support a controversial global anti-smoking treaty. The U.S.

As President George W. Bush considered joining an international tobacco control treaty, Congress conducted hearings into the desirability of giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco.